Declaration of Independence!

This was first given in Lynnville (IL) on July 3, 2005. I have updated just a bit to use on here today! The Scriptures are from Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, and 58-67 as well as Matthew 11: 16-19 and 25-30…

          Any of you remember 8mm cameras? During the late ‘50’s/early ‘60’s they were as popular in this country as video cameras are today. Mom and dad must have gotten ours for Christmas in either 1960 or ’61, and it didn’t take long for both of them to learn to use it. Soon, it seemed as if every aspect of life had to be put on film. And since part of life occurs at night, one of the first attachments added was this four-light light bar… It had four large floodlights mounted along a three-foot steel bar with an electrical cord running down to plug-in to a 110 outlet. It could be just held up in the air and pointed where you wanted it, but was designed to attach directly to the camera! Can you imagine holding all of that up for very long? In fact, over time, dad bought just about every accessory that they made for ours, including a film-editing machine which he used to make ‘full length’ films documenting our family vacations!

          All of this came to me a few years ago when I borrowed a video camera and asked to ‘borrow’ the movies and projector to make tapes of all of those old films. “Sure! Here, take this, too, and this… and here, you might as well have all of this…”  (You know, there’s still a roll of film in the camera! I’m sure it’s spoiled by now, and I doubt that anyone could even develop it anymore, but I sometimes wonder what was on it!)

          One night, while my son Ted was visiting, we sat down to watch the tape I had made from all my childhood memories, and it was quite an experience for him. And I guess it didn’t really strike me how much of an experience until we were watching the Halloween costume party that mom and dad had had at our house in Hartford and somebody filmed all of these people dancing the ‘twist’! Ted exclaimed, “What are those people doing?!” We just laughed and told him, ‘that was the popular dance right then!’

          It is amazing, isn’t it, to consider how much things like how people dance have changed over the years. Through the years I’ve seen a number of things that point-out just what-all Has changed over the years… for example, many of us watching/listening to this message were born and/or grew up before such things as penicillin, polio shots, antibiotics, and Frisbees. Before frozen food, nylon, Dacron, Xerox, radar, fluorescent lights, credit cards, and ballpoint pens. Time-sharing meant togetherness; a chip meant a piece of wood; hardware meant hard wear; and software wasn’t yet a word. A time when coeds never wore slacks… Before panty hose and drip-dry clothes, before ice makers and dishwashers, clothes dryers, freezers, and electric blankets… Before men wore long hair and earrings and women wore tuxedos.

          And yet, so many of those things, and how many hundreds of others, are now a part of our daily lives! I sometimes wonder how I ever survived days and weeks on the road during the years that I drove a ‘big-truck’ without a cell-phone to be in constant, instant communication with anyone anywhere across the country or even around the world!

          Our verses from Genesis give us one small ‘slice’ of how things were in the days of Abraham and give us pause to consider just how much things have changed. Let me read some excerpts from Barnes’ notes…

          “Abraham binds the chief servant of his house to seek a wife for his son Isaac among his kindred. The first movement in this matrimonial arrangement is on the part of the father, who does not consult his son, but the chief manager of his household affairs. Abraham is now a hundred and forty years of age, and Sarah has been three years dead. Isaac seems to have been of an easy, sedate turn of mind, and was not in circumstances to choose a partner for life such as his father would approve. The promise of a numerous offspring by the son of Sarah is before the mind of the patriarch. All these considerations impel him to look out for a suitable wife for his son, and the blessing of the Lord encourages him to proceed.

The experienced steward sent by Abraham on this task would naturally expect to see the high-born damsels of the land at the public well. The matter in hand is of extraordinary importance. A wife is to be found for the heir of promise. This was a special concern of God, and so the single-hearted follower of Abraham makes it. He takes upon himself the choice of a maiden among those that come to draw, to whom he will make the request of a particular act of kindness to a stranger, and he prays God that the intended bride may be known by a ready compliance with his request. The three qualifications, then, in the mind of the venerable domestic for a bride for his master’s son, are a pleasing exterior, a kindly disposition, and the approval of God.”

And at the end of the story, after all is said and done, we learn how… “Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”

That was a different world and a different time! Even Psalm 45, verses 10-17, has the daughter being told to… “Forget your people and your father’s house. The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord.” You know, there are places in this country today where I would be drawn-and-quartered for saying such a thing! But we DO know better, today! These were… and are… social issues! And social issues will always change as society grows and matures and becomes more aware of what true injustices are! So it is NOT a social issue that Jesus is referring to when He says, in today’s verses, “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.”

The Life Application Commentary tells us that, “The phrase “to what can I compare” was a common rabbinic introduction to a metaphor. Matthew used the word generation for Jews who rejected both John the Baptist and Jesus. Jesus condemned the attitude of his generation. No matter what he said or did, they took the opposite view. They were cynical and skeptical because he challenged their comfortable, secure, and self-centered lives. Jesus compared them to children sitting in the marketplaces, playing games in the public square where the city’s business was conducted… The thrust is that some of the children called out to others to join them, but their companions ignored their invitation and went on playing their own games. Jesus’ generation, like the children in the square, was unresponsive to the calls issued by John the Baptist and by Jesus.

The one “mourning” refers to John the Baptist, who brought the message of confession and repentance to avoid the wrath of God. He came neither eating nor drinking, yet that did not satisfy the Jews. John was an ascetic; he did not seek out social occasions. They assumed that he had a demon (or was merely deranged). In contrast, the one “playing the flute” referred to Jesus (here he called himself Son of Man), who came eating and drinking. He joined in social occasions, and his diet was like other people’s. But that did not satisfy the Jews either. They simply labeled him as a glutton and a drunkard who hung out with the lowest sort of people. Many of the Jews in Jesus’ generation, including most of the religious establishment, simply refused to listen and went about their own “games.”

How do you suppose this generation of Jesus’ time learned to think and act like that? Do you think it was an attitude they just came to adopt on their own? I doubt it! For the most part, children learn how to act as an adult by watching the adults that are around them as they grow up. Hence, the child of a smoker is far more likely to smoke than the child of a non-smoker… a person who tends to overeat will most likely raise obese children… a son who’s father drives safely will likely learn good driving habits, while the daughter of a mother with a poor sense of fashion will likely suffer the same!

So it would seem that the generation that rejected Jesus had been taught by their elders to be cynical and skeptical of everything around them. Now, let’s think what that means, for a moment! Jewish children were all raised to be believers in the religion of their forefathers… they were taught to know, not only the scripture, but all of the Jewish laws and customs as well! The problem is… they were never taught that any of those fancy words and beautiful passages actually meant something! For all of their meticulous knowledge of details, it was just a ‘mechanical’ knowledge… they knew the words… but they were empty! They didn’t mean anything to them!

And so, when the Messiah appeared among them, they never had a clue that His actions were the embodiment of the Words! They could never connect the reality of Jesus to the words themselves because, to them, the words were never ‘real’! They were never more than just a combination of letters and markings written on scroll that had been imprinted on their brain cells almost from birth!

  This is the day we in this country celebrate what we consider the birth of our nation… the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Do you know the words?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

          How many high-school graduates do you think know these words? I’d venture not very many! And why not? Because WE don’t know them! Jefferson wrote truly when he said, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” We tend to accept the evils that are ‘thrust upon us’ because it is simpler to do so than to do otherwise. A man named Edmund Burke once said… “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” But when those evils are truly evil… when Satan and his minions are at the heart of them… when they are aimed at the very heart and core of all that Christ and Christianity stand for… them we MUST act upon them!

          Laws are being passed to accept gay and lesbian relationships as being ‘lawful and proper’, while the Ten Commandments are being ripped out and banned from public buildings! Frivolous lawsuits of every sort cost us billions of dollars and incalculable amounts of time every year, while many children walk to school in the snow with no coat or gloves! And Christians are demonized in the news media and the very halls of our lawmakers for being ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘unable to accept new ideas’! You know what? If those ‘new ideas’ mean my having to rethink what the Word of God tells me in black-and-white… then let them demonize me! Let them call me anything they want… because, when all is said in done, in the end… they will still have to call me a Christian!!!

          God’s Word IS our law! Yes, social issues have changed and evolved over the millennia, but the Word of God has not! And it is time that those who claim to follow it actually learn the meaning of all of these beautiful Words and passages and start to live the lives and do the things He intends for us to!

Listen to these words from today’s reading… “Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children…”

Learning and studying these things isn’t enough… their meaning can become hidden unless we accept them… with the pure, unquestioning belief of little children… as the true, living words of Jesus and God the father!

Again, Jesus says, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Simple, beautiful words!

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

Many of us were taught that the hand of God is heavy… that we must obey or suffer the consequences! And because that’s how we learned it, it’s what many of us have passed on to our children… and their children… and so-on! And the generations behind us don’t want heavy responsibilities… they want easy and light! And so they drift away from the God of their fathers. But Jesus says, right here, that His yoke IS easy… that His burden IS light!

There is a song recorded by a number of people called ‘I Have Returned’ ( https://youtu.be/FhpxcDeA0E4 ) that  tells about returning ‘to the God of my childhood… the God of my fathers’. And some might think we need to go back further still… that we need to find the God of Abraham and of Isaac. But I put it to you that we don’t have to go ‘back’ at all! The God we worship today is the very same God that promised to make Abraham into a mighty nation! What we do need to do, however, is rediscover… or re-accept… the true meaning of His Words! Just as we’ve lost much of what the founders of this country intended it to be, we have lost the message and meaning of what Christianity was meant to be!

I’ve said it before, but I say it again… read your Bibles! Pray! Let the Words of God come alive for you… let their meanings and joys fill your soul! Only then can we all join together and do battle with the evils that confront us!